Rapid acceleration and deceleration of a person's head, especially with a rotational component, can cause shearing damage to the white matter that connects neurons in the brain, resulting in concussion symptoms, and even coma, when the shearing is severe. Disruption of white matter connections disables brain function. Symptoms can be as mild as memory and attention difficulties, and as serious as a coma state. This is the most common form of brain injury and has been shown to occur in car crashes, falls, sporting accidents and combat as a consequence of road-side bombs that cause a blast wave to whip the head producing rotational shear injury. In addition, high acceleration and rapid deceleration in flexion, extension or rotation movements can cause cervical spine fractures, torn ligaments, disc herniations, spinal cord injury and other damage of the neck. Rapid rotation and whiplash of the head is exaggerated by the flexibility of the neck, which is unable to effectively resist sudden loads, whether the load is from an impact, rapid deceleration or a blast wave. These sudden skull rotations can induce the brain to move inside the skull, stretching or tearing tissue within the white matter of the brain through inertial effects.